1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and a hand tool for carving food produce into shaped configurations. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and a hand tool for the carving a generally ellipsoid shaped vegetable, such as a potato, turnip, radish or carrot, into the shape of a mushroom.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has long been known to hand cut vegetables and fruits into various shaped configurations for decorative purposes. In the culinary art, the term fashioned or sculpted vegetable is usually used to describe a vegetable presented and served to a restaurant patron under a particular geometrical shape. This practice of presenting a particular shaped food product to a patron applies not only to vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and turnips but also to some fruits such as apples and pears.
Generally, the fashioning of vegetables is done by hand wherein a chef uses a knife or other peeling implement to carve the fruit or vegetable in a step-by-step process. It is apparent that the process of forming complex shapes from a vegetable using a knife can be quite a time-consuming process. Therefore, the use of sculpted or fashioned vegetables has generally been limited to expensive restaurants wherein the cost associated with the labor intensive process of fashioning vegetables can be passed on to the restaurant patron in the form of higher prices.
Various mechanical methods have been proposed in the prior art for overcoming the high cost associated with forming fashioned vegetables. For instance, food processors have been used to cut vegetables into various shapes. However, the food processor is generally limited to producing simple shapes such as cubes, strips and rectangular longitudinal shapes such as that used in french fries. Highly automated and mechanized methods of fashioning vegetables have also been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,102,678 discloses a mechanical apparatus that can be applied on an industrial level to produce a high volume of sculpted or fashioned vegetables. U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,761 also discloses a machine that mechanically and rapidly fashions vegetables without manual intervention of the operator on the vegetable. While these mechanical methods for fashioning a vegetable may have found use at produce companies that sell a large volume of product, they are of little use to the restaurant owner or homeowner who desires to have a simple, cost-effective method for producing sculpted or fashioned vegetables.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a simple to use and cost-effective hand tool and method for fashioning and sculpting vegetables that allows a user to fashion a vegetable much more quickly and safely than using a knife but at the same time does not require the user to resort to an expensive, highly-mechanized produce-cutting machine.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an inexpensive hand tool for carving a vegetable into a predetermined shape that allows a user to fashion a vegetable much more quickly and safely than when using a knife.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide an inexpensive hand tool for carving a vegetable into a predetermined shape that is simple to use and does not require a number of cutting operations to fashion a vegetable.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an inexpensive hand tool for carving a generally ellipsoid shaped vegetable, such as a potato, turnip, radish or carrot, into the shape of a mushroom much more quickly and safely than when using a knife.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a method for carving a vegetable into a predetermined shape that is much quicker and safer than fashioning the vegetable using a knife.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method for carving a generally ellipsoid shaped vegetable, such as a potato, turnip, radish or carrot, into the shape of a mushroom that is much quicker and safer than fashioning the vegetable using a knife.